


le quattro stagioni

by Caissa



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, F/M, Medical School, Pre-Canon, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 12:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caissa/pseuds/Caissa
Summary: Four seasons in the life of Bedelia and Hannibal as medical students.





	le quattro stagioni

**Autumn**

“Attention patrons—the library is closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your way to the north exit and bring any materials you wish to check out to the circulation desk.”

The harsh nasal tone of the head librarian startles Hannibal, interrupting his concentration. Blinking, he lifts his eyes from his well-thumbed copy of  _Grey’s Anatomy_  and checks his watch—11:45. The past few hours had flown very quickly and the reading room was nearly empty, save for a young blonde woman tucked away at the table in the corner opposite him. It was not the first time they had closed the library together. He could not complain about his choice of study companion, for she was quiet and kept to herself.

He had studied her the past few nights, how she barricaded herself behind a fortress of tomes, ballpoint pen gliding swiftly over her crisp white notebook paper. Earlier that evening a young man Hannibal recognized as one of the third years had approached her. He had the soft good looks more suited to the romantic lead of a soap opera than a medical student. Hannibal watched as the boy attempted to charm her, all high school quarterback swagger and toothpaste commercial smile, only to see her deflate his ego like a balloon with a few well chosen words. It was rude of him, he knew, but he couldn’t help but feel amused to see the would-be suitor retreat to his friends like a schoolboy that had just been scolded by the teacher.

Perhaps it is curiosity—or merely his own insanity—but he decides to strike up a conversation with her as she marches toward the exit. “It seems we are the only two studying so hard on a Friday night. An unpopular choice.”

Her blue gaze is cold and sharp, defensive. She wears her navy blazer about her shoulders like a suit of armor—a nightingale masquerading as an armadillo. “The residency system is not a popularity contest. I can’t put binge drinking on my CV.”

“I very much agree,” he says. “I had expected my fellow first years to take their medical studies more seriously.”

His response elicits a quizzical look from her. “Pardon my saying so, but you look rather mature for a first year.”

“And you look rather young for a fourth year.”

“I skipped sixth grade and graduated college in three years, so yes, I am younger than average. You?”

“I spent a few years in Florence studying the great Renaissance masters after completing my baccalaureate. I had thought of becoming an artist but opted for medicine instead.”

“The art of life and death,” she says, a slight amusement creeping into her voice, though he cannot tell whether it is at his own expense. “Good luck with your studies…”

“Hannibal,” he supplies, offering her his hand.

She takes it, sliding her own into his. It is small and a bit cold, so very tiny and delicate. “Bedelia,” she says, confidently shaking it before withdrawing.

He follows her out into the night, the air sharp with autumn and a bite of frost. “Would you let me walk you home, Bedelia? There have been many muggings reported around campus lately—the streets this time at night are not altogether safe in this part of the city.”

She stops in her tracks and turns on him. Her whole body goes rigid, as if her spine was replaced with iron instead of bone. Bedelia opens her handbag and retrieves a black can of pepper spray with the practiced draw of a gunslinger. “I know the dangers. I am well prepared.”

“In that case, perhaps you could protect me?” he hazards, letting a laugh warm his voice.

His joke diffuses the tension. “I live off of East Monument.”

“And I am in the graduate apartments. It is on the way.”

She acquiesces and shifts her shoulder bag, heavy with books, before taking off at a brisk pace. Politeness dictates he offer to carry her satchel but he senses to do so would offend her—this is not a woman who likes to be reminded of her weakness. She moves quickly through the night; he would like to believe it is the chill in the air that speeds her along rather than his unwanted company. Bedelia is close enough to study properly now. His eyes travel over her, drink her in—the thick golden rope of her blonde hair and the severity with which she has pulled it into a coiled bun, the oversized but well-made navy sweater and sensible wool trousers. A beautiful woman, he decides, who is trying very hard to hide her beauty and failing nevertheless. As one of a handful of female students in the senior class he can almost understand why. It makes him feel protective of her.

“What do you hope to specialize in for your residency?” he asks, curious to learn more about her.

“Psychiatry. Have you decided on a specialty?”

“Surgery.”

His answer earns him an arched eyebrow. Surgery is the most competitive of all specialties—many aspire to it and many fail. “And what institution will have the honor of hosting you next fall, should you succeed in matching?”

“MGH, Yale, and Columbia Presbyterian are among my top choices,” she says with no hint of modesty, remarkable given she has just named the three most prestigious residencies in her field.

“Why psychiatry?”

She slows her pace as she speaks, a bit surprised he can tell to be asked to explain herself. “I find the human mind fascinating, the infinite variety of personality, the dark and the light of it.” Her voice takes on a dreamy cast, a naked wonder shines through. It intrigues him.

“Do you aspire to private practice? Or are you more interested in research?”

Her expression clouds; his words have tripped some hidden emotional landmine. “My family and friends would prefer I enter private practice,” she says.

Hannibal hears the negative space around her sparse answer and decides to probe. “But that is not your preference?”

“The garden variety complaints of the worried well pay handsomely. But they do not interest me.” A defiant spark gleams in her eye as she speaks, one that puts him in mind of the glint of the razor’s edge.

“You wish for a challenge, to see the human mind at its most extreme.”

“Perhaps,” she answers simply, dark smile curling about her lips. Bedelia stops and gestures at the brick rowhouse at the corner. “This is where I live. Thank you for the company, Hannibal.”

“Good luck with your residency applications, though in your case I doubt luck will have anything to do with it.”

He can see her smile in spite of herself, warmed by the compliment. “Good luck to you, too, with your studies. First year is not for the weak.” She begins to walk up the steps and then pauses halfway. “Harrison always puts something from the first week of class on his anatomy exams—he wants to make sure you were paying attention.”

“Thank you for the hint,” he says, beaming back at her.

“And don’t forget to read the other case studies in the footnotes for Flexner’s class.”

His smile grows wider and wider. “I won’t. Good night, Bedelia.”

He wanders home that night, walking on feet lighter than air, like something out of an old Hollywood musical, enraptured with the idea that he may have finally met a woman who could actually  _see_  him.

 

**Winter**

Their little library “dates” continue, long after autumn’s glory has surrendered to damp Mid-Atlantic winter. Long after Bedelia submitted her residency applications in fact. While the rest of the fourth year class can be found burning off steam at Kavanagh’s after their clinical hours are done, Bedelia prefers the oak tables and hushed quiet of the medical library. She is working on a paper on adolescent trauma, one she hopes to submit to a top journal. He watches her taking a red pencil to her latest draft like a surgeon with a scalpel, her edits like bloody wounds upon the page.

She is merciless. He adores her.

He continues to escort her home on the nights when they close the library together, but has never made it beyond the brick rowhouse’s paneled wood door. A few times they have stopped for a quick meal—coffee at an all night diner, dim sum at a Chinese restaurant where Hannibal had ingratiated himself with the proprietor. He enjoyed the way her eyes brightened when he ordered for them in Cantonese.

“I make a version of this dish but with lemongrass and pork,” he tells her.

“You cook?” she asks.

“I would like to cook for you, but sadly we are only allowed a hot plate in the graduate apartments.”

“A resourceful man like yourself could improvise, I’m sure,” she says teasingly.

“You deserve better than a one pot meal of spaghetti or macaroni and cheese. No, if I were to cook for you I would do it properly.”

The frostiness around her eyes melts, her cheeks pink. “I think I would like that,” she says quietly.

It is February before the opportunity presents itself. Dr. Espinosa has asked him to house sit at his Mount Vernon Square townhome while he is away at a conference, to walk his dog and water the plants. While it is hardly the chef’s kitchen of his dreams, it does possess a fine gas range and a charming dining room, complete with an open fireplace and a polished antique mahogany table. Hannibal considered preparing one of his delicacies for Bedelia, a  _beouf bourginon_  perhaps from that American beefcake who had troubled her that day in the library. In the end he decides it would be rude to use Dr. Espinosa’s home in such a fashion and that the boy, the scion of a wealthy Philadelphia family, would likely be missed. He will make do with conventional meats for what he hopes will be the first of many dinners he will share with Bedelia.

They have reached their familiar destination, the foot of Bedelia’s front steps. Their breath catches in the evening air like little puffs of meringue. Tiny snowflakes have settled upon Bedelia’s hair, a crown of diamonds for his very own snow princess.

“Goodnight, Hannibal,” she says through plush pink lips. “See you next week, perhaps.”

“Wait,” he says, touching his gloved hand to the arm of her navy wool coat. “I’d like to see you sooner than that.”

She blinks back at him quizzically like a small mechanical bird. “Oh?”

“I am house sitting for Dr. Espinosa and have a proper kitchen at my disposal. Have dinner with me on Saturday night. I’ll cook you whatever your heart desires. A full five courses and dessert.”

Bedelia’s face crumples in on itself. It is not the expression he was hoping for at all. “I can’t.”

“You have plans?” He regrets not asking her sooner.

“No,” she tells him, shaking her head and gritting her teeth. She balls her mittened hands into fists, as if to steel herself for what she must say. “I can’t have dinner with you because I have a boyfriend.” Her voice is firm and sure and her rejection leaves no room for ambiguity.

“Oh.” His heart sinks into the pavement beneath his feet. Of course she would. It explains so much. Why she holed herself up in the library like a nun in a cloister, preferring books and journals to any male company, a sinner trying to avoid temptation.

“Paul. He’s a graduate student in English literature at Harvard,” she says, voice quiet and uncharacteristically mousy. “He doesn’t visit Baltimore very often.”

He hazards a guess. “You were college sweethearts.”

“Yes.”

“I would still be happy to cook for you as a friend,” he offers, a consolation prize to ease his broken heart.

“That…that won’t be possible.”

“Why?” He can feel his anger start to rise, burning in his veins even in the winter air.

A blush blossoms in Bedelia’s cheeks, which redden from guilt, he suspects, not from cold. “Because I already want to be more than your friend. I’m sorry, Hannibal.”

 

**Spring**

Weeks pass since that ill-starred evening in February without a glimpse of Bedelia. He no longer sees her at the library. His nights there are lonely and cold; he had not realized how much she had warmed them. He walks down her street once or twice in the hope of running into her accidentally on purpose, but to no avail.

His heart feels bruised and wounded in a way it has not been in a very long time. Memories of other losses rise to the surface from the vaults of his memory palace and it is no mere feat to beat them back into the dark. He hungers for a particular dish, the ingredients of which might only be found in the environs of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hannibal goes so far as to inquire about train timetables between Baltimore and Boston, but ultimately decides against such recklessness. There is no proof of this Paul’s rudeness, only his own jealousy. Surely Bedelia would not stay with a man who treated her poorly. Perhaps Bedelia’s beau was merely busy with his own studies. Perhaps he did not wish to distract Bedelia from hers.

But another part of him knows these are the weakest rationalizations, tepid as skim milk. There had been some fracture that allowed him to disturb their perfect Eden, for him to play the serpent in the garden.

And then one day in mid-March on the eve of spring break he quite literally bumps into her.

Bedelia is exiting the second floor ladies’ washroom; Hannibal had been prowling the stacks looking for a translation of a Dutch medical treatise. She collides with him, blonde head brushing square against his chest. He had forgotten how small she is.

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbles downcast before looking up. “Hannibal. I didn’t realize it was you.”

He takes in the sight of her. Her eyes are puffy and red. Stains of mascara line her cuffs. She’s been crying. “Bedelia, what is wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” she whispers dismissively. “I’m fine.”

He moves his body between her and the bookshelf, blocking her path. “I may only be a first year student, but it does not take a trained psychiatrist to know that you are upset. I am here to listen…if you want me to.”

Her blue eyes normally so sharp and cold look soft, wet, and open. She seems so lost. His heart aches for her; he longs to wrap her in his arms, all bitterness at their misunderstanding dissolving.

“Not here,” she says. “Outside.”

They exit the library in silence. Bedelia perches on the library’s cool stone steps and wordlessly lights up a cigarette. It is long and slender between her fingertips— _Virginia Slims_ , dainty, made for a lady’s hand. “I know it’s dreadfully unhealthy. I only smoke when I’m nervous. Would you like one?”

He accepts and lights up, enjoying the rush of nicotine in his veins. It had been awhile. “You forget, I grew up in Paris. Smoking is practically an art form there.”

“You don’t object?” she asks with a hint of that feline hunger he so loves about her.

“I don’t object to anything. Save rudeness.” He sits beside her, enjoying the way the heat radiates from her small body in the damp spring air. “Now I believe you were going to tell me what is bothering you.”

Bedelia sighs. “I’m going up to Boston tomorrow. Saturday is my birthday.”

“Happy birthday,” he says, noting the date.

“And Monday I will get my Match results.”

“I can understand being nervous about that. But I am sure you will match at a fine residency program. You are at the top of your class at the most elite medical school in the United States.”

“I know,” Bedelia says, taking a long slow drag.

“You’re not worried about the residency match.”

“No. I’m worried Paul is going to ask me to marry him.” Deep silence fills the space between them. He does not know how to respond. “Actually, I’m certain Paul will ask me. He’s predictable that way. And mother seemed especially keen the last time I spoke to her on the phone.”

“Do you not want to marry him?”

“Maybe…I don’t know.” She stubs out her cigarette with force. “I thought I did once. But now…” Her voice trails off.

 _You’ve met someone else_  he wants to say. He feels it burning on his lips. “Something has changed.”

“Yes,” she says. “I’ve changed. I want more.”

Her answer surprises him and wounds him at the same time.

Bedelia continues, speaking more to herself than to him. “Paul has everything planned out for us. I do my residency while he finishes his Ph.D. Then we move to wherever he gets a job and I spend my days in private practice in some leafy college town.”

“There are worse things, I suppose,” he says, trying to joke with her. It falls flat. “But it doesn’t seem like the life you want.”

“It’s what everyone else seems to want for me.”

“It’s not what I want for you.”

He covers her hand, so small his palm all but swallows it up. Bedelia turns to him with starry eyes, searching. She reminds him of a bird in a cage, dashing herself against the bars. Will she free herself or remain trapped by others’ expectations for her? He can see her wavering. Her eyes focus on his bottom lip. They are both thinking the same thing and it would be so easy to pull her into his lap and kiss her. But he wants her to come to him…

She pulls away.

“Hannibal, I can’t.” Bedelia softens the blow by resting her hand against his cheek, so soft. “I must make this decision for myself. I can’t be swayed by outside…influences.”

“If that is how you feel,” he says coldly, once again feeling the chill of his heart’s long winter.

“Thank you for listening. Perhaps you should be the one going in for psychiatry,” she says with a half-smile before disappearing into the night.

He picks up her forgotten pack of  _Virginia Slims_  and the cheap plastic lighter she left behind, the same ice blue color as Bedelia’s eyes. He tucks both into his jacket pocket, close to his heart.

 

**Summer**

Hopkins graduates the Class of ‘92 on a bright June day. Hannibal looks on at the pageantry where the graduates exchange the short jacket of the student for the long white jacket of the medical doctor, hopeful of the day when it will be his turn. He looks for one blonde head in particular, easy to spot as she is only one of twenty women in the class, and the loveliest of them all.

It is masochism to seek her out again. It is curiosity—he must know how her tale ends and what path she has chosen for herself. The pessimist in him knows that she has probably bowed to convention. Surely she would have sought him out otherwise.

He finds her on the edge of the crowd after the pictures have been taken. “Congratulations, Dr. Du Maurier.”

She turns to him and smiles brightly, sunlight streaking her hair like sheaves of gold. She’s happier than he has ever seen her. Yet, no diamond sparkles on her finger. “Thank you, Hannibal. I heard you finished at the top of your class as well.”

“I was fortunate to have an older student to mentor me,” he says, voice warming. “And where will you be spending next year? I’ve been in suspense all these months.”

“Boston. I matched at MGH,” she says, slight wariness in her eyes.

“Your first choice.”

“Yes.”

“Congratulations again.” He pauses, knowing he is about to say something that might be considered rude. “So, you accepted the residency but turned down the proposal?” he says with a pointed glance toward her unadorned finger.

Two pomegranate colored dots flame in Bedelia’s cheeks, but she holds his gaze. “That is correct.”

“I’m impressed. And happy for you.”

“I’m leaving next week,” she says quickly, heading off any further overtures of his before he can even make them. “My residency starts soon. No rest for the wicked as they say.”

His heart deflates like a ruined souffle. “Oh.”

“You might consider Boston for your own residency,” she says, once again dangling out that tiniest thread of hope. “Perhaps our paths will cross there.”

“Perhaps,” he says wistfully. “Otherwise I will be forced to make an appointment to see you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> The residency match is a complex process by which medical students and residency programs rank order each other--ideally there is one residency for every student. It's a pretty exciting/anxiety producing process, or so I've gathered from my doctor friends. 
> 
> Title is from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I like the Max Richter Reimagined version.


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